Hello, Great Readers of our series! Just In case you haven’t visited before, let me tell you a little about A Great Nephew and A Great Aunt. My great nephew, Landon (a seventh-grader) and I (his great aunt) collaborate. I write a poem which he illustrates. We started this collaboration in the fall of 2014 and have had so much fun with it that we decided to invite others along. Landon and I will continue to have a new episode on one Friday of each month. The other Fridays are filling up quickly with guests. I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy past episodes.

Today it’s my pleasure to share a creative collaboration from . . .

Sylvia and Liu and Her Daughter, Sarah

From Sylvia: This collaboration is one that bends the space-time continuum, because it’s between my almost-13 year old daughter and my 13-year old self. Sarah wrote the poem as part of an English assignment, which was to write about something the student would like to do but is not old enough to do, in the style of Langston Hughes’ I, Too. My drawing of an eagle seems like an appropriate illustration of this poem.

Sarah’s Poem

Sylvia’s Art

Sarah and Sylvia visiting an art installation in Norfolk, VA, called Stickwork, by the artist Patrick Dougherty.

I absolutley love that Sylvia created her art when she was similar to Sarah’s age. That makes this episode extra special in my mind. Thanks to both of them for sharing their talents.

Meet Sylvia: Sylvia Liu is a children’s author and illustrator. Her debut picture book as an author, A MORNING WITH GRANDPA, illustrated by Christina Forshay (Lee & Low Books 2016) won the Lee & Low New Voices Award. She is inspired by her family, the ocean, aliens, kraken, and cephalopods. Sylvia’s website is www.enjoyingplanetearth.com, and she co-runs the kid lit resource website, www.kidlit411.com.

Hello, Great Readers of our series! Just In case you haven’t visited before, let me tell you a little about A Great Nephew and A Great Aunt. My great nephew, Landon (a seventh-grader) and I (his great aunt) collaborate. I write a poem which he illustrates. We started this collaboration in the fall of 2014 and have had so much fun with it that we decided to invite others along. Landon and I will continue to have a new episode on the second Friday of each month. The other Fridays are filling up quickly with guests. I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy past episodes.

With today’s collaboration, Landon and I are wishing you a belated Happy Valentine’s Day or maybe an early Happy Halloween. If that seems confusing, I think you’ll get it once you read the poem and see the illustration. (And just so you know…Landon did not hide an object in today’s art.)

Penny’s PoemLandon’s Art

art by Landon

Thanks so much for joining us today. I appreciate all of you who read this series. See you next week when I’ll have guest collaborators.

And we have WINNERS!!!!

I interviewed Jackie Azúa Kramer in a blog post a couple of weeks ago. She shared about sources of inspiration and we had a drawing for two free books — one copy for the winner chosen by random.org and one copy for a Little Free Library near the winner. The drawing is over but if you missed the post head over and read it by clicking HERE.

Welcome to the Roundup.
You can leave you link at the very bottom of my post. Glad to have you!

Ants may rule the hill, but they don’t rule here! Art by Landon (Click to Enlarge)

Hello, Great Readers of our series! Just In case you haven’t visited before, let me tell you a little about A Great Nephew and A Great Aunt. My great nephew, Landon (a seventh-grader) and I (his great aunt) collaborate. I write a poem which he illustrates. We started this collaboration in the fall of 2014 and have had so much fun with it that we decided to invite others along. Landon and I will continue to have a new episode on one Friday of each month. The other Fridays are filling up quickly with guests. I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy past episodes.

I have created a page on my website to view all the episodes of A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. Click HERE to visit the page and enjoy past episodes.

Every guest episode is delightful. But today’s episode is extra special due to the number of collaborators. Prepare to be wowed as . . .

Heidi Mordhorst and Her 2nd Grade Students Take Us Under the Sea

From Heidi: These poems came about as part of a group of related projects with “a special place” at the center. The class voted to study coral reefs way back in November, and in addition to writing information brochures about this ecosystem, I offered an opportunity to express understandings in another form–poetry. Part of our inspiration came from Kate Coombs’s book Water Sings Blue, and you’ll see echoes of her “Coral,” “Shark” (what a poem!) and “Nudibranch.” It must be said that some students did not know the factual information as well as they felt the wonder of the reef—a helpful check-up!

This was our first “assigned” poetry writing of the year, after months of steeping in excellent models. We keep Poetry Friday, gluing a poem each week into our simple construction-paper covered Poetry Anthologies. We have experienced metaphor through Christina Rossetti’s “Flint,” concrete poetry through Colleen Thibeaudeau’s “balloon,” and list poems through Eve Merriam’s “How to Eat a Poem” among many others. Next up will be “Winter Wear” by Douglas Florian. As always, I consider it a success when the great majority of kids blast off on their own, knowing that they are the boss of their poem, its concept, its language, its mood.

The reef mural was made by groups of four at the TASS Table (my teacher desk, repurposed as a standing project table for “Thinking and Academic Success Skills”) after each kid used a rubric worksheet to actually score another student’s brochure! They took this very seriously, especially the using of teacher marking pens aspect. I provided the two large sheets of blue or green and the sandy color, and they did the rest completely independently—just your basic construction paper, markers, crayons, colored pencils. Oh, and wet glue–a rare treat. : )

Heidi’s school is a large preK-5 in Montgomery Co., MD. It is a diverse urban-suburban district just outside Washington DC.

Each student wrote and illustrated their own poem. They all collaborated on the coral reef to display their work.

Enjoy poetry and art as we explore their coral reef.

If you had trouble reading any of the poems as part of the artwork, click HERE for a PDF of poems—text only.

The Brochures

Closer View

Reef With Poems and Art

Group photo with Mr. Bruce Moravchik, one of our dads who works at NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)and came in to help us understand threats to the coral reef and how to protect them.

Not pictured, Angela H

Many thanks to Heidi and her students for taking us on this underwater tour with their poems and artwork.

Meet Heidi: Heidi Mordhorst is a poet and a classroom teacher (her 30th year and counting), and she likes doing both together! An active member of the online Kidlitosphere Poetry Friday community, Heidi is the author of two collections of poetry for young people: Squeeze: Poems from a Juicy Universe and Pumpkin Butterfly: Poems from the Other Side of Nature (both Wordsong/Boyds Mills).

Heidi is a dabbler–in the past she has been a calligrapher, a choral singer, a quilter, and a salsa dancer. She has lived in New York, London, Paris, Munich (“everybody talk about pop muzik”), and has always been an activist for equity in education.